Aria was the first site to use a full blown equine only content management system that we have created designed for the equine industry. This system allows for everything from handling horses, videos, photo galleries, pedigrees, news, pages, etc.

One way that the region keeps visitors and members informed is by use of a forum. We installed the forum and set it up to match the site and the way they wanted to forums to work for their needs.

To help promote the members of the region, Region 15 had directories added. These directories are for farms, stallions, trainers and classified ads. All someone has to do is add their entry and the region verfies it before it goes live. To help with the graphical layout of the content of a directory listing, tabs are used for the content layout. We also added the ability to send to a friend, download dynamic PDF’s, contact forms, and more for each entry.

The first of the resources we are making available is a listing of web designers that cater to the horse industry. You might think this category is a little off the wall for us to be publishing. Why would a web designer and his company develop a resource guide that gives free publicity to other designers in the horse industry? The answer is simple. Not everyone is going to want to use SEMS Design services, and there will be times when SEMS Design might not be able to meet your deadline for the creation of your project. At the same time, there is some confusion about what a web designer is. There are some designers out there that have the whole package; graphical design skills, programming skills, search engine optimization skills, etc. Then there are those that only have one or two of the skills and your project needs one of the skills that are missing from your current designer. We will list the skills we think these designers have to help you to make the best decisions in picking your designer(s). These listings are in no particular order. They are from the first 2 pages of Google with the search phrase “horse website design”.

Summary

For the most part these are the sites I would tell you to visit if you do not have any use for our services or you are in need of a particular design. I added the Curly site for your protection when browsing. I really do not feel the need to prioritize these sites, just know that they where the only sites I found worthy of actually looking at, giving my opinion, and looking at some of their client sites. Any other of the design sites, that I found, I would tell you not even waste your money, because if you did spend $1, consider it wasted.

This list is not about fair or about getting more exposure for one person/company over another. It is about the mission: expanding and improving the identity of the horse on the world wide web.

Here is how it works.

1) Select your desired site category

There really is no difference in the selection of any of the categories besides the pre-defined pages in each one. We have created it this way so you can have a head start on doing what you want to do – publish your website. Now that you know what category you are going to use, you will select the template.

2) Selecting the Template

This is where you get the chance to select from hundreds of templates to give your site the look you want it to have. When you are in this phase you will be doing 6-8 steps. Here they are:

1. Choose the category you want to browse for your theme template.
2. Once you are in a category you can then select a theme from inside that category. Each time you select a theme you will see a preview of the selected theme.
3. Select the color combination available for the theme.
4. Upload a banner to implement into the theme to give it the unique look you desire.
5. Upload your logo
6. Type in your Site Title and Subtitle along with a footer message.

This will give your site the basic look before moving on to step 3: Customizing the pages.

3) Customizing the Pages

Now that the theme is selected you will add the pages you want to have included in your website.

This is what is great about the SEMS Design SiteBuilder. Adding and deleting pages is easier then ever. Here is what needs to be done and it only takes 5 minutes max.

1. We have set up some Page Sets. These sets already have selected page names that we think would go with a category you selected in step 1.
2. Standard Pages are those that are defined in the Page Set. Once you select a Page Set you will select which pages you want and then simply click the arrow to move them to your Page Structure, #4.
3. If you want to add a common page that you can then rename, you will do this from #3.
4. This shows you the current pages you have in your site.
5. Once you have your pages you can then easily move them up and down, left and right.

You are just about done building your site. The hard part is done and now all you have to do is add your pictures and content.

4) Editing Your Web Pages

Now that the template has been selected and you have changed the banner, you can edit the content and the images you add to your website.  Looking at the above image you will see that in this step there are 4 areas to work with:

1. #1 shows the pages you selected from the previous step. Selecting any of these will show the page so you can edit the content and insert images.
2. #2 is your editor. This allows you to markup all of your page with text, links, images, etc.
3. #3 is for your search engine optimization. Here you will type in the page title, the keywords for the page and the page description. This is for the search engine spiders to index your page in the proper place in the search engines.
4. #4 is the actual page. This is where you can do all of your editing and see how it will look.

You are now done. That was not that hard at all. Once you have finished editing your pages you will click the next button on the bottom, or the Publish button on top.

5) Publish Your Website

If you are trying our SiteBuilder for free, you will see a link to your published site. The site will be available to preview for 14 days. After that you will need to sign up with us for web hosting for the site to stay active.

Done!! If you are in the mood to try your hand at building your website, this is the tool for you. As time goes on we will be making the process even easier by adding templates that are strictly for the horse world. Stay tuned on that. For now, sit back,  roll up your sleeves and have some fun.

Please contact us with any questions you might have or use our Client Help Desk for support issues.

]]> http://www.semsdesign.com/in/web-design/free-web-design-by-creating-your-own-equine-website/feed/ 0 http://www.semsdesign.com/in/marketing/creative-marketing-techniques-for-horses-farms-stallion-equine-professionals/ http://www.semsdesign.com/in/marketing/creative-marketing-techniques-for-horses-farms-stallion-equine-professionals/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:35:28 +0000 Rob Simpson http://www.semsdesign.com/in/?p=347 Finding ways to creatively market your horses for sale,  stallions,  farm,  equine professional practice,  or anything horse related, is important in your search for prospects. One of the best techniques that can be used is URL Rewriting. I will explain more about this and what it is in a moment. For now, let me set the stage for you. Let’s say that you have a horse for sale on your farm website. We will name the horse Johnny Be Good and your farm name is Meadow Horse Farm. For someone to visit the page that is for Johnny Be Good, they would go to www.meadowhorsefarm.com/johnny_be_good.php. This link might be hard for someone to remember, and for marketing purpose can look a little sloppy. Now we will clean up the link so that it looks better for marketing purposes and is easy to remember. For online and offline marketing we want to use the URL www.meadowhorsefarm.com/johnny. This is going to make it easier for someone to remember your sale horse and clean up the look of your ad. How do we do this? We do it by writing code into our .htaccess file. Let’s go through the steps of getting it done.

Steps for URL Rewriting

How easy it is to set up making memorable links will be determined by the software that is running on your server. Some web hosting companies offer you a control panel that will give you access to your .htaccess file and URL rewriting. We do offer this in our control panel so that you can easily handle doing something like this without having to do the following hard coding.

Step 1: Alter your .htaccess file

If there is already a .htaccess file on your server you should be able to find it in your root folder. If you do not find it you can open a text editor to create the file. Once you have your .htaccess file open you will want to add the following code:

RewriteEngine On    # Turn on the rewriting engine<code>
RewriteRule    ^johnny/?$ johnny_be_good.php    [NC,L]    # Handle the request for Johnny
</code>

Here is the explanation of what has just been entered.

• RewriteRule – Tells Apache that this like refers to a single RewriteRule.
• ^/johnny/?$ – The “pattern”. The server will check the URL of every request to the site to see if this pattern matches. If it does, then Apache will swap the URL of the request for the “substitution” section that follows.
• johnny_be_good.php – The “substitution”. If the pattern above matches the request, Apache uses this URL instead of the requested URL.
• [NC,L] – “Flags”, that tell Apache how to apply the rule. In this case, we’re using two flags. “NC”, tells Apache that this rule should be case-insensitive, and “L” tells Apache not to process any more rules if this one is used.
• # Handle the request for Johnny – Comment explaining what the rule does (optional but recommended)

Now you can save the file as .htaccess. If you are using a text editor make sure you save as “All Files” and not “.txt”. Then you can upload the file to your root folder.

Now you can open your pages and change your links to www.meadowhorsefarm.com/johnny. If you are doing offline advertising you can simply use the same URL, www.meadowhorsefarm.com/johhny for example, to help make your link memorable.

Please note that the .htaccess file is very sensitive as is URL rewriting. If you are unsure about these steps you can check out Apache URL Rewriting Guide.

If you can get the hang of rewriting you will start to get creative in the way you link to your pages. This will help with making your links attractive in online and offline marketing, and help in search engine optimization. For example, let’s say we have the same website, www.meadowhorsefarm.com. We also have a folder for salehorses and a page for Johnny Be Good. Keeping search engine optimization in mind you can create a rewriting rule that would change www.meadowhorsefarm.com/salehorses/johnny_be_good.php to www.meadhorsefarm.com/western-pleasure-sale-horse/johnny/. Seeing that search engines have a high criteria on picking up keywords in the URL, this would help if Johnny Be Good is a western pleasure sale horse.

The above example is a basic example. There are other ways to create patterns for more dynamic websites. You can go as high as your imagination will take you. You can even go to the point to where the link will read www.meadowhorsefarm.com/horses-for-sale/quarter-horse/western-pleasure-sale-horse/johnny/. You can see from this link that there are numerous keywords that have been added to the URL. Great for search engine spiders that come to your site.

There are millions of ways to improve your links and your search engine optimization with URL rewriting, and all it takes is some practice and a good imagination. Please note one more time that you have to be careful with the rewriting of the links and the .htaccess file. Any incorrect code will result in fatal errors.

If you would like more information on this please let me know. I can give you some tips by email, with the discussion below, or you can hire me to re-do your website and the way the links are shown. Have fun and I hope this is helpful in your online and offline marketing.

Rob

With the ever increasing complexity of the web environment and the proliferation of web programs, services, and designers, how can a small business create a web presence that achieves its desired goals without breaking the bank? In the face of numerous options and potential costs, many small business owners are considering building their websites in-house rather than hiring the services of a web design professional.

The Importance of a Quality Website
Ten years ago, typical small business websites often consisted of nothing more than the
following basics:

1. a few simple HTML pages
2. some frames or tables
3. a couple images
4. static text
5. an occasional link

A person did not have to know much about coding or have any significant design sensibility to create a simple and relatively effective website. However, as web technology has evolved, expectations have changed and grown; a basic one-page site isn’t enough to maintain an adequate web presence or garner new clients anymore.

Internet users are more sophisticated than in the past – they want to see flashy,
engaging elements, but they want meaningful content too. In a nutshell, they want to be engaged by the websites they visit. If a site is boring or bland, it can seem unprofessional. A business website must evoke a feeling of quality while being appropriate for its intended audience.

Successful websites accommodate these changes in overall expectations, as well as the specific needs of the customers it will serve. Determining the target customer base is part of designing a quality website, and evaluating the needs of potential clients can contribute significantly to determining the make-up of the target market and what that market will expect.

Evaluating Potential Clients’ Needs
Before a business owner can decide whether to hire a professional designer or to
employ a DIY plan of attack, it is imperative that he evaluate the needs of the company. By considering a series of targeted questions, the decision maker can better determine whether a DIY approach is feasible or if a professional designer is required.

It might seem like DIY competes with your potential business, but this is not
necessarily the case. You don’t really want every dreamer looking to hang out a shingle as a client. You only want clients who have a solid foundation and the growth potential to work with you for many years to come, so it makes sense to weed out businesses that would be better served by doing it themselves.
By asking potential clients the following questions, you can evaluate their needs and determine whether they are ready to hire your firm or if they would get more bang for their buck from a DIY approach:

1. What do you want and need from your website?
2. Will your website serve an informational purpose with the primary goal being to direct customers to your brick and mortar business?
3. Are you trying to expand your business by tapping into the ecommerce marketplace?
4. Do you want your website to be a destination where people interact with each other online?
5. Do you want to expand the business capacity of your existing website?
6. How much of your business operations do you plan to manage online?
7. Will your site serve a clientele that might have difficulty accessing or using the web?
8. How much time and money have you budgeted for your website?
9. Do you have any design or coding experience?
10. What do you expect from your business and your website in 2, 5, or 10 years?

By reviewing these questions with potential clients, you can help them determine if designing a website is something they can handle on their own or if they should plan to hire a professional (namely, you). If there are additional questions that you think would be valuable for you or your potential clients, don’t hesitate to add them to the list.

You should decide at what point in the decision making process you want to get
involved. Depending on what will best serve your goals and desired approach to
interacting with clients, you can choose any of the following options for how you want to share your evaluation questions with potential customers:

1. Post on your website. This is the least interactive method that requires minimal involvement on your part, but it also means you could convince potential customers they don’t need you before they ever talk to you. You won’t participate in the evaluation and you’ll have little chance of earning their business.
2. Deliver by email. This method requires a moderate level of involvement. It forces the potential client to initiate contact, which gives you an opportunity to get more involved if you feel so inclined.
3. Require an in-person or telephone consultation. This is the most time intensive method, but it ensures that you participate in evaluating the potential client’s needs. This option gives you the best chance of securing the contract if it is a project with which you want to become involved.

Do It Yourself

DIY is becoming a maxim in today’s culture. Of course there are some things that absolutely require the services of a professional, but there is a growing attitude that is embodied by the idea that if I can do it myself and do a pretty good job, why should I pay someone else to do it for me?

In this sense the web services industry is no different from the home improvement industry. People want autonomy, they want to work on their own schedule, and they want to save money. If they think they can achieve similar results as a professional for less money by doing it themselves, they’re likely to make that choice.

The key is to know when the job calls for a professional. For example, while an
unskilled person might be able to hang his own wallpaper to his satisfaction, he is less likely to be able to repair a broken pipe. It works the same for the web. A static, 5-page, HTML site is nothing like a 1000-page, CMS-based e-commerce site with dynamic content. An untrained person might be able to create an adequate site if it is simple in format and intent, but complex and technical sites should be left to the professionals.

Pros and Cons

DIY offers the following positive features:

1. Autonomy: The vision of the business owners can shine through unfettered by outside influences. They don’t have to worry about receiving things they don’t want, and they don’t have to deal with other people thinking they know what is best for the company.
2. Cost: DIY requires little to no monetary outlay other than software products and web hosting charges.
3. Ease: The learning curve to develop a simple, no frills website is relatively small, and numerous tools exist to help ease a beginner into the process. Many free or low cost templates with a good deal of customization are available on the web. Additionally, basic HTML is fairly easy to learn and a variety of free or inexpensive WYSIWYG web authoring programs can be found on the Internet. DIY can be limited by the following potentially negative consequences:
4. Time: There is a time-cost trade off with DIY. It might save some money, but it will require time to complete the project. Business owners should know what their time is worth so they can conduct accurate cost comparisons between DIY and a professional designer.
5. Effort: Basic HTML is relatively easy to learn and use, but websites built using only basic HTML will struggle to compete in today’s marketplace. WYSIWIG editors can be extremely useful, but they are limiting in their overall capabilities, the relatively unattractive code they produce, and the inadequate flexibility they provide for future changes.
6. Appearance: It is difficult for an amateur to build a site that doesn’t look like it was designed by a beginner, but if the company chooses to use a template to circumvent that risk, other problems can arise. Templates tend to look very similar, which can be devastating for a business that needs to stand out from the rest. Additionally, many free hosting and template services require sites to display built-in advertisements that can detract from the professional appearance of the site.
7. Cost: Inexpensive web services often advertise minimal packages with
   limited support. By the time a company subscribes to all the advanced
   services that are necessary, the cost savings has vanished.

The Professional Designer

Professional web designers and developers are people who know their industry,
understand the requirements of the web environment, and are committed to their craft. In short, they are experts. When you market yourself as a professional web designer, you are telling potential customers that you know what you are doing and you will deliver a product that exceeds the quality they could achieve on their own. Hiring a professional brings all the benefits one might expect, but it can have some potential downsides as well.

Pros and Cons

Hiring a professional designer offers the following positive features:

1. Knowledge: Good web designers have extensive knowledge of relevant software, design fundamentals, current trends, and more. This knowledge allows them to recommend solutions that are appropriate for the needs of individual businesses.
2. Efficiency: Professionals are familiar with the products they use and the solutions they provide, so they can produce quality results with much more efficiency than a beginner.
3. Creativity: Part of being a web designer is having the innate creativity to blend form and function in successful ways. The creativity that a professional brings to a website can be the extra ingredient that makes the site stand out above all the rest.
4. Quality: A well-designed website that is built using best practices has much more impact that a mediocre site that might not incorporate certain features that could improve accessibility, functionality, and search engine rankings.
5. Out of Sight, Out of Mind: By hiring a professional, the business owner can relinquish responsibility for the implementation of the project, which frees up time to focus on other projects.
6. Ongoing Support: Building a relationship with a design agency means that continued support is available beyond the completion of the project, which can be a welcome relief for many businesses.
7. Growth Potential: As a business grows, needs and requirements can change. A professional company has the ability to grow with a business, spearheading the evolution of the web presence to match the current state of the business and contribute to its continued growth.

Hiring a professional designer can be limiting due to the following potentially negative consequences:

1. Cost: Professional design services will cost more than a DIY approach – and they should. However, the cost isn’t necessarily any higher once you factor in time value, initial and ongoing expenses, and the potentially higher profitability of the site due to its professional design.
2. Time: Web design firms are often working on multiple projects at the same time, so it can take awhile for the project to be fully completed.
3. Communication Breakdowns: Anytime another person is added to the decision making circle, it increases the chances of a breakdown in communication. Professionals constantly have to interpret the desires of their clients, but sometimes the expectations get lost in translation.
4. Ongoing Costs: If the original website project evolves into a maintenance and update plan, there will be ongoing, regular costs that would not exist in a DIY implementation.

Conclusion

DIY is a valuable addition to the web services family of options, but it does have its limitations. Business owners who choose to build their websites themselves are often disappointed in the overall results or the necessary time investment. Many end up passing the project off to a professional because of these (and other) frustrations.

You can view the PDF version of this article here.

This article comes from Linktogether, www.linktogether.com.

1) Valid Code
Before any other practices can be considered, this has to be considered, looked at, and made the top priority. If the code that runs your website is not valid you run the risk of some of your visitors not have access to your site. If that is the case, there is no reason to have a website. Keep in mind that if you have a website for your farm or horses as a personal hobby, you are free to do as you please. If you have any interest in doing any type of business using your website, all visitors must have access to your website. I could write another complete article on what is valid code, but right now I want to make sure you know how to check for valid code. The best way to make sure your website is valid, go to http://validator.w3.org/ . This tool is great because it will show you where the errors are and how you can fix the errors. I have seen some site that have 10+ errors which is not good for making sure that all of your site is accessible.

2) Layout
Having a good layout is much more then just how your site looks graphically. Layout has to do with how your content is positioned, where your images are best used, and how a search engine will follow your content. There is huge debate these days on what is better, tables or divides, in setting up a website. That again is another article, and not a global concern in practice.

The common flow of a website is to have a header, content section, and a footer. The content area can be anywhere from 1 column to 4 columns. Be advised that it can be difficult for reading purposes when there is 3 or more columns. Reading on the internet should be re-worded as scanning. That is what people to do when they visit a website. They scan the content. There is to many websites to visit these days for someone to sit at one website and read every word on the site. So keep this in mind when you layout your columns. Also know that when a search engine visits your site, the spider will read from left to right. So if you have multiple columns, your content might look a little different to a search engine then what you think

3) Navigation
Having a good navigation system is very helpful in getting visitors around your site. Make sure when your navigation system is set up that it is clear that it is understood that they are links.

4) Images
There is a fine line when it comes to using images the best way possible. Is it more important that the image is clearly seen but is bigger in file size, or is it more important that the image does not look good but can be downloaded quickly? Having a good photo editor can help you in finding a middle ground that will help your images to be clear and not that huge in file size. It should also be noted on how to save images for the web. If you are using an image that does not have many colors involved, save as a gif file. A logo usually falls into this category. If you have an image that has many colors involved, save as a jpg. All of your photo files should be saved as jpg’s because of the colors that are involved in the photo.

5) Content
Making sure that your content is easy to read and has a clear hierarchy is important in so many ways.

The use of proper fonts can help to make your content easy to read. First you need to make sure that the font is a web standard font. If you try to use a font that is not web safe, who knows what your content will look on someone else’s computer. The size of the font is also important. Make sure that you use heading tags for your titles and headings. With the use of CSS you can do so many different styles to your headings. Try to use a different font for your headings/titles and another font for your paragraphs. Doing this will allow your visitors to scan your content much easier and to find out what is important. Headings also help the search engines in determining what is important on your website.

6) Colors
Colors can do so many different things for your website. Using colors wrong can be a huge turnoff to your visitors. What colors you use will be a personal choice for you, just know how to use them and how many to use. A good technique is to use a color triad that blends 3 colors nicely. A good tool to use is http://www.colorschemer.com/online. This will help you to try to link 3 colors that blend nicely. A couple global color practices:

• Do not use a light color on a light color. This is very important when it comes to your font and background. If you use a light blue font on a white background, think headache.
• Make sure that your links have their own color
• Try to use different colors for when a link it hovered over. If you do want to do this you can add/take away the underline on the link.

7) Final Website
Having a website can sometimes make you lose your patience. What do I mean? You want your website to go live so quickly that you put it up without it being complete. First impressions are killer. Always try to have your website complete before going live. This does not mean your site has to be finished. You can always add to the site. Just don’t put it live and then put an Under Construction image on it. Not very appealing.

8. Communication
A website is a great tool for easy communication. Try to have your contact information available on all pages.

Summary

These practices can be applied to any website. There are other practices that can be used for a website depending on the needs of the site. My hope is that this will help you in the evaluation of your current website so that you can have a successful website. What images you use, what layout technique you use, what font you use, what color you use are all your personal preferences. Just try to keep these practices in mind when building your site. Always keep in mind the visitor and what is best for them. How they see your site will in the end determine the success your website brings you.

If you have any questions feel free to contact us for help.

Download: Website Strategy Guide

There is a Web Standards checklist that you can use to make sure that your website is set up in a manner that will allow it to maximize your benefits of having the site. Using this list will allow you to check off what you have and what you do not have. If you find something that is missing in the checklist, you can present it to your designer to fix the issue. If your designer can’t take care of the issue, you might want to think about getting different services somewhere else.

Here are the categories in the checklist:

1) Quality of code for horse and equine websites

This allows you to take a look at different parts of your site to make sure that there is nothing that is preventing different people from seeing your website as you see it. Not all web browsers get along, and if the code is not set up to meet all the needs of different browsers, you might not be happy with what others are seeing.

2) Degree of seperation between content and presentation for horse and equine websites

I believe the title explains most of this section.

3) Accessibility for users at horse and equine websites

Having your site set up for every person is crucial in the success that your website brings you. This part of the checklist will help you to make sure that all visitors to your website will have no problems while visiting your site.

4) Accessibility for devises at horse and equine websites

Making sure that your website can be accessed by anyone and everyone is important. This part of the checklist will check to make sure that people on different browsers can all see your website just as you want them to. It also checks to make sure your site looks right when it is printed, and if need be, check to see if the content on your site looks right on a hand held devise. There are a couple other checks that are included in this section.

5) Basic Usability of a horse and/or equine website

Basic usability is used to check that all of the site is easily navigated and that visitors will have no problem getting around your website.

6) Site management of a horse and/or equine website

Site management refers to the proper use of a 404 error page, friendly URL’s, favicon, and more.

Download: You can download the Web Standars Checklist to start checking your website today.

Summary

Making your site accessible to all of your visitors is important to your online success. This checklist will help you in making sure that there is no visitor that is having problems at your site.

Hope this is helpful for you.

Rob